Road to Berry Edge, The (9 page)

*

There was not enough room in the bed for Susannah to scorn herself openly. She knew that she couldn't turn away from him or let her face show anything. He was too intelligent, he would see. He was silent. Usually men wanted to know how brilliant they had been and Susannah always told them. Sometimes they wanted to talk or sleep or have a glass of wine, even do it again straight away or at least try, as though it was a matter of mathematics and the score was important. Susannah lay with her arms around him for a few minutes, and then he moved away, glanced at her and said, ‘What was the book you were reading when I came in?'

That was new, Susannah thought, conversation about books in bed.

‘It's a novel by Dickens called
Great Expectations.'

He began to laugh. Susannah was astonished. She propped herself up on one elbow and watched him. There was never laughter in her bedroom, not that kind anyway, not genuine amusement.

‘Is that what you have, Susannah, great expectations of the men who come here?'

‘Heavens, no, never,' she said. He seemed to think that was even funnier, and she knew immediately that laughter was the most important thing she had given him that evening.

He stayed. Susannah went to sleep in his arms, something else she had not done before. It was so comfortable. When the daylight came she opened her eyes and he was dressed and standing by the window, looking out over the river at the castle and the cathedral. Winter sunlight was pouring into the room in the late morning. She didn't move, but he sensed that she was awake and said without turning around, ‘I'd forgotten how beautiful the view was.'

‘Most men prefer the view inside the room,' she said, smiling, and he turned around at that.

‘I didn't say that I preferred it,' he said, and went back to her. She held out bare arms which she fastened around his neck and when he put both arms around her she clung on.

‘Don't leave.'

‘I have to.'

‘Come back to bed.'

‘I have to go.'

Rob kissed her on the forehead and then her face and all the way down the front of her neck.

‘Next Saturday?' he asked.

‘Saturday, yes.'

‘Go back to sleep,' and he kissed her again and left.

*

Harry had woken in his favourite position, warm against a young woman's soft breasts. From somewhere he could hear church bells calling the people to Sunday service. He remembered that he was in Durham and that all he had to look forward to was Rob's dark, gloomy house, his ugly mother and another of the plainest dinners in the world. He wouldn't get a drink with his dinner and at the end of the day all there was was a lumpy bed.

He drew back and looked at her. She was very pretty, quite fast asleep. He kissed her awake and then into his arms.

When he left Rob was waiting outside.

‘Been there long?'

‘Just a minute or two.'

‘Let's go and find some breakfast,' Harry said, ‘this kind of thing makes me hungry.'

At the nearest hotel there was coffee and eggs and bacon and toast and honey. Harry glanced across the table.

‘You're not eating. Wasn't it a good idea after all?'

Rob grinned suddenly. Harry hadn't seen the light in his eyes for a long time and smiled back, pleased.

‘Like that, was it?'

‘Oh God, Harry, she is so beautiful. I could almost have believed she wanted me there, she was so good. She's dark like Sarah.'

When they had eaten they walked a little way on to Elvet Bridge and stopped there, looking down at the ducks which were paddling near the edge. Snow began to fall.

‘I hate Christmas,' Rob said.

‘Don't you find that everybody over the age of eighteen does?'

‘What was the other girl like?'

‘Nice. They're always nice. I always like them. I wish that just once I could meet somebody and think, “God, yes, that's her,” the way that you did with Sarah. I'd like that.'

‘It'll happen,' Rob said.

‘I don't think it will. I've been getting out of women's beds on Sunday mornings for so long now I don't know what I'd do if I got married. I'd have to pretend I had an appointment and leave.'

Rob smiled. Harry put an arm around him.

‘Did you ask to see her again?'

‘Saturday.'

‘Good. Do you think we'll be having cabbage again for dinner?'

‘I expect so.'

‘And that yellow stuff?'

‘That's turnip.'

‘No, it isn't. Turnips are tiny white and purple delicate things that look like snowballs on your plate and melt on your tongue. That stuff is what you give cows.'

‘What in the hell do you know about farming? You come from London.'

‘I know turnips when I see them, and those aren't,' Harry said.

*

When Rob had gone Susannah lay down for a while, but she didn't sleep. The sunlight was dazzling where Rob had pulled back the curtains to enjoy the view. She got up and washed and dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen. Claire had just lit the kitchen fire.

‘We ought to get a maid,' Susannah said for perhaps the hundredth time.

‘I don't want nobody talking about us. We'll manage. Do you want some tea?'

They sat by the kitchen fire and drank their tea.

‘I wish I could make that much money every Saturday night,' Claire said. ‘I'd give up the rest.'

‘Generous?'

‘I think he likes women.'

‘And you liked him?'

‘Some poor cow will marry him and never know a moment's peace for the rest of her life.'

Susannah laughed.

‘What was the other one like?' Claire said.

‘I don't think he ever paid for it before. I think he might be married.'

‘He wouldn't be coming to you if he was. Can you imagine
being married to a pet like that and telling him you've got a headache? I'd never have a headache again.'

‘If I could have him - I mean if I could really make him want me, I could get rid of the others.'

Claire looked hard at her.

‘A rich man's mistress? You could have had that before.'

‘I didn't want to then.'

‘Do you think he might do that? I'd be happy to sleep on my own for the rest of my days.'

‘If he'd never paid for it before there must be a good reason for him doing that now, don't you think, Claire?'

‘Did you like him?'

‘Not particularly, but he's young and rich and good looking. I'm so tired of smug, fat, old men.'

Claire was looking at her.

‘You do like him,' she said.

Susannah gave in.

‘Oh Claire, nobody made me feel like that before. When he took me into his arms …'

‘That's very dangerous,' Claire said.

‘I know, and I know that really he's probably just like all the rest. He couldn't have made a lot of money without being selfish and ruthless and horrible.'

‘You shouldn't see him again,' Claire said, and sighed. ‘All that money though. It would be a shame to waste it.'

Rob's father began to get better so Faith and her parents were invited to dinner. Faith didn't want to go. She hadn't seen him since he had come home, she had deliberately stayed well away from the house.

‘I don't think I can bear to be in the same room,' she told her mother.

‘You only have to be polite to him for an hour or two, Faith,' her mother said. ‘It won't kill you.'

Faith put on her oldest dress. It was blue and mended. It had the kind of big sleeves which were no longer fashionable. It had been John's favourite dress. She put up her hair in the most severe style and then she walked across and down the street with her parents, with thumping heart and uneven breath.

Nancy did not open the door. There was a new maid whom Faith did not recognise. Rob's father and mother were sitting by the fire, and in the room were the two most stylish men Faith had ever seen. She began to wish that she could have changed her hair, her dress and several other things.

Both of them were tall and dark and they stood up as she walked into the room. One of them had eyes which were the nearest thing to chocolate, and the other had smoky eyes and, but for that, looked exactly as John Berkeley had looked the last time that she had seen him alive. He was
John to her, she wanted to run across the room and throw herself into his arms. Faith remembered Rob careless and laughing, she didn't remember him like this. He said hello quite naturally and introduced her to Harry Shaw. They were both so well bred and easy that Faith didn't know what to say. She sat opposite Rob at dinner and didn't lift her eyes. She wished more than anything that he would turn back into the horrible person she felt sure he was. It was as though some evil fairy had cast a spell and Rob had died and John was sitting across the table, eating his dinner with total unconcern. She tried to talk to Harry. She watched him approach his plate carefully.

‘Aren't you hungry?' she said.

‘It's the cabbage,' he said. ‘It's such a pedestrian vegetable, don't you find?'

‘People around here are glad of good food. Are you from Nottingham, Mr Shaw?'

‘I'm from London. We live in Nottingham most of the time though we do have a house in London.'

‘And what do you do?'

‘We make things, like you do here. We manufacture goods. My father and I are engineers. He builds railways, at least bits of them, and bicycles and … other things.'

‘He must be very clever.'

‘He's a cantankerous, demanding old fool as a matter of fact, but he had a teacher once who called him a genius and he's never recovered.'

Faith was shocked again at Harry's free way of talking. No man that she knew would have been as rude as that about his own father. She thought it was particularly tactless when Rob's father was so ill because of Rob.

‘What does he think about you coming here?' she said.

‘Not much.'

‘If Robert had come home earlier it wouldn't have been as bad as this.'

Harry, wisely Faith thought, said nothing to that and her
cheeks burned for a moment or two because she had not meant to say it.

After dinner the older people went off to the sitting room to have tea, but Harry and Rob seemed inclined towards the little back sitting room where the maids would have sat, had there been any maids. Here Theresa, the new help, had left coffee for them. It had obviously become something of a ritual and, since Harry was polite enough to ask Faith to go with them, she went.

Faith was determined to have Rob as she had imagined him and not as her shaking hands told her he was now. When he gave her coffee she said, ‘I was beginning to think you weren't going to come back at all.'

‘I wasn't.'

‘What about your father and all the people of Berry Edge who would be put out of work?'

‘I didn't think that was anything to do with me.'

‘It's very much to do with you. If it hadn't been for you none of this would have happened.'

Harry sat forward in his chair.

‘Miss Norman—'

‘It's all right, Harry, I know what Faith thinks of me.'

‘After ten years?' Harry said.

‘It was John's birthday last week.'

‘I didn't forget,' Rob said softly.

Faith looked down into her coffee cup.

‘You've altered,' she said.

‘You haven't. I thought I might have come back here and found you married with children—'

‘That would have been easy for you, wouldn't it?' Faith looked at him suddenly. ‘Is that what you tried to think when you were away? That everything was all right, possibly even that the accident had never happened, that you and John had not quarrelled, that he had not drowned, that John and I were married and happy here?'

‘I just hoped that you could have gone on by now.'

‘I couldn't marry anyone, not after John. You should know that. The only person in the whole world who is anything like him is you, and it's so cruel because you only look like him, you're nothing like him at all, you were always - always jealous of him. He was everything you weren't, kind and generous and clever and …' Faith ran out of words. Harry was startled but Rob wasn't looking at her. When he did his grey eyes were icy.

‘How long have you had that dress?' he said. ‘I think I remember it.'

Harry Shaw closed his eyes for a second. Faith didn't understand why, or Rob's question.

‘What?' she said.

‘Whatever possessed you to wear it? Are you frightened in case some man might think you look pretty?'

Faith nearly choked.

‘I considered over dinner,' Rob said, ‘that no woman who thought any good of me could have appeared in such a dress.'

Faith burst into tears.

‘I hate you!'

‘My dear girl, where are your manners? You didn't really wait ten years to say that to me? I don't understand what you're doing as an old maid. The whole thing is quite ridiculous. My mother tells me you go to his grave every week and put fresh flowers there. It's as though you're keeping him alive with your good works and your dowdy looks—'

‘Dowdy?' Faith stared at him through her tears.

‘John's dead, Faith, and all your misguided loyalty will never bring him back.'

‘I don't know how you dare speak his name. He's dead because of you. It was your fault, you did it!' Faith was on her feet now. What she wanted more than anything in the world was to go over and hit him so that he wouldn't be John. This was exactly the way that John would have
reacted if anyone had attacked him verbally, Faith felt sure, all intelligent and cold. Rob wouldn't have. He would have laughed and yelled and maybe even hit her before now like he had when they were children. Rob had had a seriously bad temper, and the fact that she was a girl had not made much difference.